Trench Bolts and Magic

Chapter 72 Am I really a magical genius?
Amidst the turbulent changes across the continent of Europe, and the tense standoff between the two great empires, the situation remained unchanged.

In Seville, right in the eye of the storm, Morin and the others were surprisingly spared from combat missions.

Based on the reconnaissance conducted by the armored airships over the past few days, the Royal Army and the Brittany Expeditionary Force, having suffered a crushing defeat, have no intention of launching another offensive.

The Royal Army's 24th Infantry Division, which had suffered heavy losses in the previous street fighting, and the Brittany expeditionary force retreated more than 40 kilometers in one go.

With no fighting for several days in a row, the residents of Seville who had fled the city when the fighting began gradually returned to the city.

However, when they returned to their familiar home, they were met with a shocking scene.

Many buildings were reduced to ruins, and collapsed walls and charred remains can be seen everywhere on the streets.

The city was filled with countless Allied soldiers and the various bunkers and barricades they had built, turning the once peaceful city into a place of grim atmosphere.

Meanwhile, Morin and the other surviving officers received a new mission.

A task none of them wanted to complete, yet one they had to—to lead their soldiers and volunteer citizens in clearing away the bodies of both sides in the city.

In battle, a soldier's death can happen in just a few seconds.

However, the time and effort spent cleaning up their remains is dozens, or even hundreds of times that amount.

A large number of horse-drawn carriages and oxcarts were temporarily requisitioned.

Stiff, cold bodies were pulled from the ruins, bunkers, and waterlogged craters.

Then they were loaded onto horse-drawn carts and slowly transported along the streets of Seville to the designated mass graves outside the city.

Although the daily temperature in Seville in February does not exceed 12 degrees Celsius, the corpses still emitted a strong stench as time went by.

Morin and his surviving soldiers wore simple, multi-layered cotton bandages every day, mechanically repeating the process of moving, stacking, and transporting.

The relief of surviving a disaster was long gone from their faces; only numbness and exhaustion remained.

The priest of the church in downtown Seville even spontaneously organized citizens to hold several large-scale mass funerals outside the city for the fallen soldiers of both sides.

The priest prayed for the departed souls in a solemn and compassionate tone.

At this moment, on this land soaked in blood, there was no longer any distinction between enemies and friends.

Only the living and the poor dead remained.

Perhaps, for those soldiers who died in pain and fear, death was a kind of relief.

Those who survive must carry all of this on their shoulders and continue on their journey.

The mass funeral was held in a spacious suburban area.

The newly dug, enormous pit stretched as far as the eye could see, its edges piled high with corpses that had just been brought out of the city—a horrifying scene.

Whether it was the Saxon soldiers in their grey uniforms, the Breton soldiers in their red uniforms, or the Aragonese army and members of the International Brigades in their various attire...
They lay quietly together, no longer able to hurt each other.

It is said that a priest personally appointed by the Vatican stood by the pit, holding a thick Bible in his hands, and recited the eulogy in multiple languages.

His voice sounded tired and aged, yet it possessed a comforting power.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes

May the Lord accept their souls, regardless of which country they belonged to or what beliefs they held in life.

"In this land, they were all lost sheep. May they find eternal peace in heaven."

Maureen stood at the back of the crowd, silently observing everything.

He didn't pray like the people around him; he just watched quietly as the volunteers pushed the bodies into the deep pit, where they were gradually buried by the shoveled soil.

He felt mixed emotions.

The cruelty of war was far more direct and naked than he had imagined.

In the sand table simulations of the two military academies before and after the time travel, the soldiers are just cold numbers and chess pieces.

But here, every life that has passed away was once a living, breathing human being.

They have family, friends, and their own dreams and hopes.

But now, everything has vanished.

Klaus stood beside Morin, a platoon leader who was incredibly brave on the battlefield, but now he was wiping his eyes repeatedly with the back of his hand like a child.

One of his fellow villagers and friends had been killed in the previous street fighting, and his body had only just been found.

After the funeral, the soldiers began a new round of cleanup. There were simply too many bodies in the city, and this work could continue for several more days.

Maureen forced herself not to think about those heavy issues and devoted all her energy to her work.

He personally led the team, venturing into the partially collapsed buildings and prying open the crumbling walls, all in an effort to find comrades who might have been buried.

Every time he found the body of a Saxon soldier, he would carefully examine the identification tag and then have the clerk solemnly record it.

This was the only thing he could do for his comrades who had fought alongside him for a short time but ultimately perished. As night fell, the exhausted soldiers returned to their temporary camp after being disinfected.

The campfire was lit again, but the atmosphere was more somber than in the previous days.

No one talked big anymore, and no one boasted about their achievements.

Everyone ate their dinner in silence, their eyes vacant as they stared at the flickering flames.

Morin had no appetite either; he only drank a few sips of hot soup before returning alone to his assigned room.

The shocking scene from the daytime kept replaying in his mind.

He suddenly realized that his previous understanding of the world might have been too simplistic.

This is not just a stage where he can showcase his talents and make a name for himself.

This is a real and cruel world.

The phrase "When a person is killed, they die" is no longer just a joke.

"Survive"

Morin muttered to himself, "Only by surviving can one be qualified to think about other things."

Only by possessing sufficient power can one protect oneself or change things one disapprove of.

Having figured this out, Morin's confusion gradually dissipated, replaced by an unprecedented sense of determination.

He could no longer wallow in grief and confusion.

He must become stronger. At the very least, he must have the strength to protect himself.

As night deepened and the entire camp fell asleep, with only the footsteps of patrolling sentries echoing through the silent streets, Morin once again entered 'spell learning' mode.

This time, he was completely focused.

He no longer saw learning magic as torture, but rather as a necessary path to self-improvement.

Outside the window, the moonlight, like water, quietly spilled over this city that had suffered so much.

Under this tranquil moonlight, a soul from another world is quietly accumulating its own power for survival and the future.

During the day, they cleared the rubble, moved corpses, and comforted the soldiers.

He would stay up all night studying spell models and memorizing complex rune structures.

This kind of life of "laying bricks during the day and studying the law at night" is a double torment of mind and body for any normal person.

But perhaps it was the resilience of a transmigrator's soul, or perhaps the stimulation of war unleashed the potential within him; in any case, Morin managed to persevere.

He discovered that he seemed to have some talent for learning magic.

The [Shield Spell] that had previously given him a splitting headache and felt even more painful than calculus was completely mastered by him in just two or three hours on the second night after the first night of 'forced learning'.

When the system message appeared saying "[Shield spell has been successfully recorded to 'My Spellbook'", Morin even had the illusion that he had just finished a calculus mock exam.
With the experience of success, learning the second spell, [Mage Armor], became much smoother.

It is clear that the magic of classmates can be applied to other situations.

Morin also applied the basic knowledge about the structure of the Protection School's spells that he had learned while studying the Shield spell to his new studies.

As a result, he successfully acquired the [Mage Armor] in just one night.

"Oh no. Could I really be a genius?!"

Seeing the two lit icons in 'My Spellbook', Morin didn't hesitate to allocate his four first-level spell slots and two second-level spell slots equally to these two life-saving spells.

Three [Shield Spells], three [Mage Armor] spells.

As soon as he made up his mind, the system backend began to automatically 'load' the spell slots.

A light blue progress bar appeared below the spell icon, indicating that it would be ready by the next morning.

After doing all this, Morin let out a long sigh of relief, a sense of security he had never felt before welling up inside him.

Although he doesn't have any offensive spells yet, mastering these two defensive spells will greatly enhance his survivability in close-quarters combat in the future.

However, along with the excitement, a new worry also arose.

He couldn't hide the fact that he had learned magic forever.

Especially in the upcoming battles, if the situation becomes critical, he will definitely subconsciously use magic to protect himself.

At that time, an ordinary infantry lieutenant suddenly transformed into a mage capable of casting spells.
This situation seems rather unusual no matter how you look at it.

"We need to think of a way to find someone knowledgeable to ask."

(End of this chapter)